Points for effort?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Do artists deserve critical credit for trying ambitious stuff? Interesting debate on various tumblr blogs concerning indie dudes Of Montreal (beloved of byebyepride and piratemoggy, tho I don't think I've seen either pronounce on the new album) (pot80 luvs it tho) who have ISSUES with dismissive reviews of their latest waxing.

The original short interviews
Some back and forth about it.
My own response (well, currently it's at the top - catch it while you can!!)

I think this is an interesting little debate.

Comments

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Yes. But... it's a lot more fun to point out that artist X has done something ambitious when perhaps they didn't even realise it themselves. And nobody has a priori the right(s) to critical respect.

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

Does non-engagement (defined as "hmm, I can’t quite get my head around this but it’s OK") always entail a paucity of insight? Can't non-engagers sometimes tell us something interesting about what they think an artist's motives might be--possibly because non-engagers come from an outsider perspective?

I would like to think, that maybe, every great once in a while, an Unreconstructed Indie Rock dude might have something insightful, interesting, and right to say about Mariah or Britney--something that would've never occurred to me on my pop-liking lonesome. Or does being an Unreconstructed Indie Rock dude pretty much shut out that possibility?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree actually, which is why I prefer conversation to reviews. But when I did that kind of thing on ILM it was usually phrased as a - sometimes quite aggressive I guess - "Defend the Indefensible" kind of thing.

But reviews aren't quite this kind of conversation - even in the comment-box era (which P4K of course doesn't take part in) there's a definite hierarchy of statement and response. And in those circs I've come round to the idea that the person given the chance to make the statement should have some level of generosity. (An indie rock dude might well be generous, but then they'd be a reconstructed one ;))

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

"Main point being, why on earth shouldn't I get offended over people's reaction to Britney Spears's or Ashlee Simpson's albums (more the latter recently) that seek to deny the same auteurship that someone like Barnes seems to think is his right for....what, being ambitious? So's Erykah Badu. So's Randy Newman, so's Marit Larsen. So what?"

This whole argument is a slippery slope to this point:

"We should be more engaged, always."

Which I agree with, I suppose, though I wouldn't want it to be my job. I remember writing two reviews a week for about four months, and I wanted to kill myself dealing with so much half-assed "ambition" and "concept." I mean try reviewing two CRESCENDOEY POST-ROCK albums in one week by gauging the ambition. And if we're saying Barnes is for some reason different, that his cultural influence is more significant than Mono or Upward Stars into the Sky We Fall or The Silver Lining of Man's Hands Limbo then I suppose *that* could be a subject of review itself (a la "where's Britney/who's Britney" in Blackout I guess?). But if the music falls short, the music falls short, and as a grind reviewer I DO think that's the bottom line. Maybe not for someone invested in this band or this personality specifically who has a vested interest in actively exploring that relationship, but for someone who has to deal with Kevin Barnes Lites on a regular basis, yes.

And as soon as Pitchfork decides to be more egalitarian in whom they'll review, I'm not going to worry about how generous those critics are to the mini-celebs who get more ink than the super-celebs (who get about zero), plenty of whom are, I imagine, far more ambitious than the Of Montreal dude.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Kevin Barnes Lites not in sound, but in attitude.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

- Yes, artists should definitely get credit for trying ambitious stuff. This is not necessarily the same as automatic praise, though; as I'm sure we all know, ambition can often fall flat on its face, and arguably knowing your strengths and using them appropriately makes someone a greater artist.
- A lot of the time, though, an album which is sold as "ambitious" is nothing of the sort (it's usually "slightly weird" or "lazy"), but critics have a tendency to fall for this sort of talk if it comes from the right sort of act. Kid A is an obvious example.
- Really genuinely ambitious records which succeed at what they try to do are PRETTY RARE. Kate Bush's Aerial and Erykah Badu's New Amerykah spring to mind - albums whose scope is so immense and so unlike anything else that you're overwhelmed by them. Kanye West's new album will be an interesting case in point too - for a rapper at the height of his popularity to turn around and produce a collection of skeletal, sparse meditations on paranoia and loneliness sung entirely through Autotune is incredibly ambitious, and to see that sort of artistic chutzpah from a major commercial act is really excellent. I've reviewed it twice and that definitely influenced my praise for it - but what's most important is that he mostly pulls it off. The album sort of teeters between working and falling flat (some of the lyrics, agh), but the visceral emotional pull of the music wins out in the end I think. Though once I've had time to live with it I may feel differently!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think Kid A actually succeeded in its genuine hard-to-achieve ambition (transform our image without fucking up our sales) and basically failed in its musical ambition (make a good rock-IDM fusion).

And yeah I think in practise I probably DO give points for ambition - I don't go back and listen very often to A Grand Don't Come For Free because the rhymes and songs aren't as good as the debut but I adored it at the time for doing what it set out to do, which seemed a really logical and compelling move back in whenever it was.

[koganbot]

I posted these comments here:

I've followed so many links upon links that at this point I don't even know whose blog I'm on. On the question of "should we give him points for ambition and risk," this ought to vary from critic to critic, depending on how much the critic values ambition and risk and what sort of risk the critic values etc., also what's going on in the world (e.g., if everyone's taking risks then maybe I'd be valuing competent craftsmanship whereas when we're swamped in competent craftsmanship maybe I'd be impatient for some risk). Also, I like the Barnes interview (so much so that I might even pick up the copy of Paste with his mug on the cover that's been staring at me from my floor over the last week), wish the interview had been longer so that Barnes could have had the chance to make like a critic and really delve into what he thinks is going on in the record.

(Also, I get restless when the question arises "What's the critic's job?" since my answer is "Anything." Should critics be rewarded for ambition and risk? Some are better trying to serve the music, some are better trying to toss you headlong into the world of the music and its controversies.)

Main point being, why on earth shouldn't I get offended over people's reaction to Britney Spears's or Ashlee Simpson's albums (more the latter recently) that seek to deny the same auteurship that someone like Barnes seems to think is his right for....what, being ambitious? So's Erykah Badu. So's Randy Newman, so's Marit Larsen.

Well, auteurship isn't a right, it's something that an auteur does, which is that he or she or they, in concord or in discord, make a whole array of choices, this chord here, that note there, this word rather than that word, sometimes with a lot of forethought, sometimes out of habit, sometimes spontaneously; and listeners, if they want, can hear or see or feel the musicmakers' (and the time's and the culture's) world or vision or possibilities or ways of acting or social relations etc. etc. The point of such criticism isn't to declare someone an artist but to look hard at the choices and ask oneself what's going on. (Not that I do this all the time, mind you; but it's worth doing when I can.) In any event, the reviews of Britney, Ashlee, etc. that I have contempt for are the ones that just assume right off without looking that nothing interesting is going on. But a review can be plenty smart that doesn't get around to even asking "Who's the author here?" (though given that, for instance, the first line of the first song on the first Ashlee album goes "You think you know me?," authorship is a question that she raises from the get-go, and it would be strange not to jump in and start wrestling with it).

I'm certain that a lot of my knockoff comments on the Year In Pop threads will miss the adventure or attempted adventure that's going on in a lot of the music; this is why it's good that we've got a multitude of voices on those threads, since sometimes someone else will see a story that I miss in the music.

on brownie points

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

'Ambition' in indie circles has become so codified into a move that's made when a band is bored of good/honest songcraft I'd say its a no to brownie points.

Re: on brownie points

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yeah this is right - would also say that, like "weirdness" (which the concept of "ambition" is closely tied to), you can tell when something is genuinely ambitious and/or weird when it doesn't particularly shout about it.

Skeletal Lamping reviewed in full:

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Spiffing pop music in the usual slightly odd shapes. 'Death Is Not A Parallel Move' and 'Beware Our Nubile Miscreants' are the best tracks, however, it is all fairly fantastic rollick-pop. Not actually any more unique than 'Radio: Active,'* thinks it's cleverer than it is but then of Montreal always have. Kevin Barnes is sort of right to be pissed off at the reviews because generally reviews of Of Montreal albums are shite at describing them. However, it's not like, idk, Ziltoid The Omniscient or something; it's still very much recognizable as of Montreal, with all the frustrating "shit, we've written a pop album and ...oh god, quick, put a weird two minute dischordant keyboard solo in before we get popular."

I actually think it's a complete retreat from the ambitiousness displayed on 'Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?' They've dived back into the indie womb, having realised 'Suffer For Fashion' was getting a bit too playable and had a bit of a panic.

*ie: the music is not necessarily ground-breaking but only of Montreal could make it.

Re: Skeletal Lamping reviewed in full:

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

[not taking 'Ziltoid The Omniscient' to be a benchmark for 'extraordinary ambition,' above; I meant that it's one of those ones that's a little bit hard to write about without sounding completely bonkers:
"Well you see Devin Townsend's made an album of the usual waves-of-sound metal that sort of sounds like a children's audiobook and this is an awesome thing."
as opposed to:
"of Montreal are still doing that jangly indie almost-pop thing."]